Xiaomi to sue Indian websites for selling phones illegally

China’s leading smartphone manufacturer, Xiaomi seems to have grudges against few Indian websites and plans to press charges against them for selling its products illegally in Indian market.

In India, only Flipkart and Airtel have consent from Xiaomi to sell its products. While Flipkart uses the strategy of exclusive flash sales, Airtel was chosen to sell Xiaomi’s products through its brick-and-mortal retail stores.

Manu Jain, head of India operations at Xiaomi said –

They’re infringing on trademarks and they’re making the world believe that it’s a genuine Xiaomi site, which it is not. The products sold on these websites are not meant for India and are sold at significantly higher price points. We have written to them multiple times, and we will be taking legal action against them.

This move comes amid a legal tussle, initiated by Ericsson over patent infringement. The Delhi High court, which had earlier granted an ex-parte injunction against Xiaomi, then partially lifted the ban and allowed the China’s largest smartphone maker to continue sales of selected models equipped with Qualcomm processors. Xiaomi was barred from selling Redmi Note in India since it runs on a Mediatek processor.

Since, India is the second largest country for Xiaomi in terms of its sales and market establishment and development, the company is showing keen interest in setting up a manufacturing base in India by teaming up with manufacturing partners Foxconn and Inventec.

Jain said-

We’re holding conversations with Fox-Conn and Inventec, who majorly manufacture for us, to set up an assembly line in India,” Jain said. The manufacturing location is still to be decided.

In fact, India is emerging up as the fastest growing market in terms of smartphone adoption, which is rising almost at an exponential rate, and has also staged a huge leap towards the world of connectivity. Coming days would surely prove to be glorious for smartphone manufacturers, specifically for mid range device manufacturers as Xiaomi.